


Dies Irae, Dies Illa

by heartstone



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Daddy Issues, Despair, Drug Abuse, End of First Age, M/M, Madness, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 23:44:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20016748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartstone/pseuds/heartstone
Summary: The two remaining Silmarilli mocked him as he carried his Master, not more than a wraith, to His chambers. He longed to take them from their iron hold and throw them into the deepest pit of Angband, where, at the very bottom, their light would suffocate at last. But he knew it would only break Him.***Mairon helplessly watches Melkor's despair.





	Dies Irae, Dies Illa

Delirious, his Master reclined upon His high throne.

Magma cooled into twisted shapes of writhing black stone, swallowing the calcified bones of long-extinct beasts, their broken and chipped horns curling from the crest rail of the throne’s high back. Pale stalactites and stalagmites fuzed onto the legs and merged with the rock like burrowing maggots. Grand and imposing, the seat was cut from living rock and over time had absorbed it back into the walls living rock, a testament to the ages it had stood, mighty, in the midst of the hall.

Diminished was the small figure who sat upon it. He slouched forward in His regal seat like some skeletal relic, like the hall was naught but a burial chamber, and He was the corse with highest honour, to be sealed away for eternity. Eaten by time and eroded by the elements despair and insanity, He was the pitiful likeness of one who long ago could raise mountains with the flick of a hand. 

Shadows wavered around Him, undulating and weaving about the vacant eyes of the skulls set into the shoulders of the subterranean throne. They seemed to be frenzied in their consuming fear of the Light and their Master’s degenerating madness. Mairon watched them struggle around Him in vain from the end of the hall, watched the feeble body totter on the throne it once filled, and listened to the derangement of His laughter echo past the door and through all the corridors of Angband.

But still the Light shone, uncaring of its keeper’s sanity. Two rays, white from black iron, cleaved its way through his Master’s mind and pushed aside the shadows that strove around Him: piercing and painful in its holy splintering of the soothing curtain of velvet-black deep. Mairon watched as Melkor laughed Himself into a swoon, and crumpled back against the throne.

_***_

_King of Majesty tremendous,_

_Who dost free salvation send us,_

_Fount of pity, then befriend us!_

***

He was still on the ground when Mairon found Him.

Kneeling and stripped to the waist, He mindlessly flung the whip at His back, and the knotted leather shredded His pale flesh, carving valleys into the skin like glaciers rent the earth, filling its ragged edges with crimson. Weak and inebriated, and all but sprawled on the floor, Melkor still, in His incoherence, lashed Himself hard enough to make new red lines of swollen gore.

The handle of the whip was slick with blood when he took it from Him, and Melkor at last collapsed, raving His prayers into the stone floor. The long plane of His back was torn beyond recognition, and would only ever half-heal to vine-thick and knotted scars. Mairon’s hands trembled, and he resisted the urge to yield to similar despair.

Drunk beyond all comprehension, beyond all but numbness, the world mercifully faded from Melkor’s senses and quieted all of His pain. He felt His endless terror of the nearing end solidify in the tingling, oily wine, sweet with overripe and bruised berries and bitter with a larger volume of poppy milk. The plum and clove and other spices hung sickly in the air, and the alcohol lingered just beyond the consciousness of the other scents of the potent nepenthe.

He sobbed pitifully on the floor as Mairon helped Him up, then drowsily smiled, eyes vacant and watery, dripping like the blood on His back, rivers of blood and tears. Strands of His dark hair clung to His face, to His back. Mairon rocked Him, splaying Him over his lap. Sweat and alcohol and opium was Eru’s incense, and the Vala whimpered miserably and in vain, pleading to the deaf ears of the Father.

***

_Worthless are my prayers and sighing,_

_Yet, good Lord, in grace complying,_

_Rescue me from fires undying._

***

The two remaining Silmarilli mocked him as he carried his Master, not more than a wraith, to His chambers. He longed to take them from their iron hold and throw them into the deepest pit of Angband, where, at the very bottom, their light would suffocate at last. But he knew it would only break Him.

In His degradation, Mairon could easily see the overwhelming terror in His Light-blinded eyes, Fëa succumbed to the lure of nihilism and hopelessness. What he would not give, Mairon thought, to restore His peace, if only even for a moment, a mere breath of time.

He laid Him on the bed, draping His limp body like a beloved garment of threadbare silk or ragged velvet. Drops fell and sprinkled onto the remains of Melkor, the Mighty Arising, and the ever-loyal Maia above Him trembled.

He would carry on for the both of them, until the bitter end. Until the curtain of despair had lifted, and his Master didn’t need the opium to be free from His grief.

**Author's Note:**

> Might be confusing, but that middle part where Melkor is drunk and drugged is meant to be a flashback, not concurrent with Mairon seeing Him pass out on the throne.  
> A few notes:  
> I believe Mairon seeing Melkor's despair and nihilism and His desperate, futile attempts to commune with Eru lead him to being what Tolkien calls an "insincere atheist." Meaning, he obviously knows God exists because he's actually seen Him, but he doesn't think that Eru cares about Arda or its people.  
> It is interesting to me how one of the eternal sins of Christianity is despair, that is, believing oneself is beyond the forgiveness of God. I think that adds a whole other layer of tragedy to Melkor's situation.  
> The title is from the Gregorian chant "Dies Irae," and the title, "Dies Irae, Dies Illa," means "that day is a day of wrath" in Latin, of course meant to insinuate the upcoming War of Wrath :P The two small poems in the middle are also from the chant.  
> ***


End file.
